Flirtation Walk

by Siri Mitchell

  I’d just have to . . . what? My hands began to tremble as I felt my chin start to pucker. What was there left for me to do? I didn’t deserve an honest life, and I had lost my taste for a dishonest one.

  Maybe my father was right about me. I wasn’t meant to live a respectable life.

  I willed myself calm as I put a hand to my bonnet and retied the ribbons beneath my chin. I pulled my mantle closer about my shoulders and walked out toward the military academy to meet Mr. Conklin, as I had planned.

  I pretended I was delighted to see him.

  I let him pull me closer than was proper.

  We strolled along Flirtation Walk together, and as we did, we came upon several other couples. Though we halted to let them pass, Mr. Conklin didn’t step off the path for them. They were obligated to go around us, even the girl who was wearing shoes ridiculously ill-suited to the terrain. But the cadets snapped salutes and quick-stepped away from us. I had the feeling Mr. Conklin usually got what he wanted.

  As did my father.

  It was odd that two men so unlike each other—one intent upon keeping the rules and the other on breaking every one—could be so similar. I’d spent my childhood following one man without question . . . if I kept to the path I was walking, I would spend the rest of my life following the other.

  But what other choice did I have?

  In spite of the frigid breeze coming off the river and autumn’s vividly blue sky, the air suddenly seemed stifling. I tightened my grip on Mr. Conklin’s arm. “What would you say if you discovered there were . . . ? What if there were disreputable people in your family?”

  “My family?”

  I nodded.

  “There wouldn’t be.”

  “But how do you know?”

  “I promise you, my family is beyond reproach. The first Conklin on these shores signed the Mayflower Compact. There’s nothing about us that we don’t know.”

  “But what if there were.” What if there were an outright criminal hiding in plain sight?

  “Why would there be?”

  “If there were, what would happen?”

  “I assure you, they wouldn’t be invited to Christmas dinner!”

  “Not even if they had a good reason for what they’d done?”

  “A good reason for being disreputable?” He said the words as if he didn’t quite understand them.

  “What if they didn’t mean it?” But I had meant it. “What if . . . what if they didn’t understand what they’d been doing?” But I had understood. “Or what if . . . what if . . . ?”

  He took my hands in his. “Lucinda. My dear. All in good time. Anyone who joins the Conklin family would bring nothing but honor to their own family. Speaking of which, it’s been so good to meet your own father. And your uncle. They’re not Conklins, of course, but I know you must have your own sort of family pride.”

  46

  Seth

  I spent the rest of the evening planning our swindle.

  The first thing we’d need were costumes. Deke had to look like a newspaperman, and Dandy had to look like the sire of one of those New Orleans planters. And none of us had a stitch of clothing between us that wasn’t regulation issue.

  “Got any ideas?” I asked Deke as we sat on the wall of Fort Put, looking out at the river and its valley.

  “There’s a girl works the laundry at the hotel who’s been giving me the eye.”

  “I don’t want you to have to do something you’d regret. Or that I’d regret you doing.”

  He heaved a sigh of relief. “Well, thank goodness for that! I knew you were a true friend.”

  A true friend who didn’t have any better idea, unfortunately. “Do you know anyone in town? Someone who wouldn’t ask why you needed two whole sets of clothes?”

  “No. You?”

  “No. Or I would have asked before now.”

  “I don’t know anyone in town . . .” He pushed himself to standing. “But I do know Benny Havens!”

  “Benny? He wouldn’t help us with something like this, would he?”

  “If you told him you were planning to run a swindle beneath the commandant’s nose? ’Course he would!”

  “But he’s a— No offense, because I know you like him . . . but he’s not anyone’s idea of a gentleman.”

  “Doesn’t make any difference to me. I’m supposed to be a newspaperman, aren’t I?”

  I nodded. “It’s Dandy I’m worried about. He needs to look just right.”

  “He will. I promise you. If anyone can do it, Benny can.”

  I left it to Deke to run to Benny’s that night and beg for what we needed. That would take care of all my problems. At least I’d thought it would, until Otter and Dandy sat down next to me at supper that evening. One on each side of me.

  Dandy glanced over at the fellows sitting next to us, and then he leaned in close. “I’ve been thinking about your plan, and I just don’t know that I can go through with it.”

  If Dandy wouldn’t do it, the whole thing fell apart. “All I need you to do is . . . Blast it, Dandy! You don’t even have to pretend to be a Southern gentleman, because you are one. It’s not as if you’re lying. And even if you were, this might as well be a military operation: we’ve got an enemy that we’re trying to defeat through subterfuge, misdirection, and deception.” I clapped him on the back. “Your integrity won’t be compromised. Besides, all you have to do is be yourself. It’s everyone else who has to do the pretending.”

  “I’m fine with all of that. It’s the part about betting on Otter.”

  “The part about . . . ?” Now I was mystified. Why wouldn’t he bet on Otter? They were the best of friends, and Otter was the best horseman among us. “Why wouldn’t you? Don’t you trust him?”

  “Of course I trust him. I’d trust him with my life.”

  “Then what’s the problem?”

  “It’s the part you said about why. It’s what I’d have to say to Lucinda’s father.”

  “All you have to say is something about betting with your compatriots instead of against them. And everyone knows you Southern fellows are better with horses.”

  “First thing you have to realize is they’re not my compatriots. Second, it’s not—”

  “They’re not your compatriots? Last thing I knew New Orleans was south of Arkansas and east of Texas. That is the deepest South there is.”

  “But—”

  He was starting to make me mad. “And don’t even try to say it’s not true about Southerners being the best at horsemanship.” I rattled off half a dozen of the best horsemen at the academy, and all of them were from the South.

  “I don’t think you understand that—”

  If I didn’t stop him, he was liable to argue with me for the next ten minutes. Sometimes all a soldier needed was reassurance and a direct order. “I don’t need you to ride the horse yourself. I just need you to put on that accent of yours and say what everyone else believes to be true. Is that going to be a problem?”

  “If it were anyone but you, I wouldn’t be doing this. Just so you know.”

  “And I appreciate it.” I nodded and went back to contemplating the poor excuse for supper that we were being served.

  “Uh . . . General?”

  “Otter?”

  “Yes sir, General.”

  “What is it? Are you not going to be able to do this either?”

  “I want to say, yes, I will, but I oughter be honest with you. Just doesn’t set right. Asking me to ride poorly is like asking a man to go back and crawl after he’s been walking around on his own two feet for twenty years. I might as well be lying. And a gentleman’s word is his bond. So how am I supposed to do that?”

  I could think of lots of ways. And any one of them would work just fine for my purposes. But it wasn’t me I was trying to reassure. “Didn’t you hear me tell Dandy this was a military operation? Can’t you just pretend?”

  “I suppose, on reflection, I might could . . . but a horse don’t forg
et a thing like not being ridden well. And I tell you, most of the time, the only thing I like about this place is the horses.”

  “So what you’re saying is you don’t feel right about pretending . . . to your horse?”

  “No, sir. Mother always says, if nothing else, I’ve always been an honest man.”

  “So what you’re saying is you want to be honest about this whole swindle? Is that what you’re saying?”

  “I just, I want to help you and everything, but . . . I sure would feel better about this if I could feel like I was telling the truth. That’s all.”

  “I really need you to do this for me, Otter.” He was the only one who could ride York.

  “I know you do. I realize that.”

  “But I wouldn’t want you to do it if it doesn’t seem right.”

  He broke out into a grin. “Thank you, General. Thank you so much.” He dug into his puddle of boiled carrots with much more enthusiasm than I could muster.

  Dandy had been listening to our conversation. Now, he set his fork down. “Does this mean we aren’t going to do it?”

  “We’re going to do it.”

  Otter looked at me with drawn brows. “But you just said—”

  “I just said I’d save your conscience.”

  “But—”

  “I think I can figure out another way to do the whole thing. A way that will make you able to sleep at night, Otter. Would you agree to a plan like that?”

  “Of course I would! Anything that gets you out of trouble and doesn’t get me into it. That’s a plan I can agree to.”

  With Dandy and Otter satisfied, I went back to eating. Otter’s request might make things more difficult, but there were ways to work around it. What if he never made it onto the horse that first day at all? Or what if he made it into the saddle, but couldn’t get any further? The only thing I had to do was make sure Lucinda’s father heard his accent and make it look as if he couldn’t sit a horse. What could be so difficult about that?

  47

  Lucinda

  Wednesday came too soon. And not without trepidation. Seth thought he could out-gamble my father? That was . . . Why, that was insanity!

  When my father wasn’t peddling his deeds to land in make-believe towns during the spring and summer, he was plying the Mississippi River as a professional gambler in the fall. If Seth thought he could just fancy talk my father out of his money, he was greatly mistaken. But I did want to help him get his money back. If there was any chance that he could succeed, shouldn’t I help him?

  At least my father wasn’t planning to go into the city on Wednesday. That meant all I had to do was get him to the riding hall. I knew a dozen ways to make someone do what I wanted, but I’d never tried any of them out on my father. I went into the parlor after breakfast praying that I could convince him to do what I needed him to. “The weather looks fine today.”

  He gave a glance toward the window. “For November.”

  “I was thinking of taking a walk to the academy.”

  “Suit yourself. I plan on trying to talk Mrs. Holt out of one of those pies she’s baking.” He propped an ankle on his opposite knee and took up a copy of some newspaper.

  Why not get directly to the point? “I was thinking that maybe we should figure out how to make some money here as well as in the city.”

  He sent me a keen glance over the top of the newspaper. “What did you have in mind?”

  “Was there a riding hall when you were here?”

  He nodded as he turned a page of the newspaper. “We received training on horses every week.”

  “They built a new riding hall just this year. All the cadets have been rhapsodizing about it.”

  “Hmm.” He was scanning the articles, no doubt assessing who or what might be good for a swindle.

  “It’s seems like the perfect place to lay down a wager or two.”

  “Hmph.”

  “Perhaps we should take a look.”

  He sighed and then his brows peaked. He rattled the newspaper. “They say the army is starting a camel corps.”

  Camels? “Whatever for?”

  “Transportation in Texas. And New Mexico. Hard to figure out a way to profit from that, though. Wonder if they’ll bring some out here for those cadets to practice on?”

  “But don’t you think we ought to?”

  “Ought to what?” He glanced at me over the top of the newspaper.

  “Have a try at gambling down at the riding hall.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  What? “Why not?” He had to!

  “Too risky.”

  “Risky?” Risk was the whole point. He’d lived his entire life—my entire life—on a knife’s edge of risk.

  “I don’t think anyone will recognize me, but you were right in thinking it might not be smart to take chances.”

  He always took chances! If we didn’t take anything else away from a scheme, we always took chances. “Maybe you’re right.” But I couldn’t fail Seth. Not again. Even if his plan was doomed to failure, if I could do nothing else for him, I must get my father to the riding hall.

  A long-ago phrase echoed through my thoughts. Sometimes when things were going poorly, my father would simply give in. “I suppose we could just go back to Buttermilk Falls.”

  He stopped reading, and for the first time that I could remember, he focused solely on me.

  “But I was thinking that maybe—”

  A chuckle rattled around his chest for a moment, and then it erupted into a roar. “Sorry.” He pulled a handkerchief from his coat and patted at his eyes. As he tucked it away, his eyes were still dancing. “And what was it, my dear, that you were thinking?”

  “Why not take advantage of any game we might propagate right here? It would be a shame to let good money go to waste.”

  He was silent for a long moment while he stared off into the distance. And he finally nodded. “Why indeed?”

  I felt my shoulders sag in relief. I’d done my part, I would take my father to the riding hall. I could only hope that now Seth would do his.

  We decided to stop by the hotel before walking across the Plain and down to the riding hall. That way we might be taken for tourists who wouldn’t know anything about the horses or the cadets who rode them. Once we gained entrance to the hotel, I made a show of pretending I had forgotten my gloves. I apologized to my father and darted up the stairs. After walking the length of the second floor twice, I took my gloves from my reticule and pulled them on as I descended.

  Father smiled at me and offered up his arm.

  I threaded mine through it. As we departed, he asked the desk clerk for directions to the riding hall.

  “The new one, sir?”

  “Unless there’s an old one.” He winked.

  “No, sir. Just cross the Plain in the direction of the academy building, and once you’ve crossed, follow the path to the left on down the hill.”

  We started toward it at a leisurely pace. I hoped my diffident manner belied the hammering of my heart. I didn’t know what I was supposed to do beyond getting my father there. What was Seth expecting of me?

  “We’ll do it the way we usually do.”

  “Pardon me?”

  “If I determine there’s betting to be done, we’ll do it the way we’ve bet on horses in the past.”

  That meant I was supposed to circulate through the crowd until I found a regular attender. When I feigned an interest, it generally didn’t take long for the man to tell me everything he knew about the horses and their riders. I would relay that information to my father, who would check it against his own sources and his own instincts, and then he would attach himself to some man who looked fresh from the countryside. Father was particularly skilled at using big words that meant nothing at all to convince a man to bet against him. And sometimes he even used me to flatter the man into parting with his money.

  Seth had no idea what he was up against.

  Constructed of stone, the riding
hall was long and imposing and topped by a curiously curved roof. Stepping inside it was like stepping into a deep cavern. The floor was dirt and was covered with tanbark. The walls were high. Rays of light streamed from parallel lines of tall, narrow windows, setting each particle of airborne dust to glimmering. I drew a handkerchief from my reticule and held it to my nose to try to stay the equally pungent odors of horse and hay-straw.

  My father elbowed me in the side.

  I followed his gaze to a cluster of men who lounged about the edge of the riding ring.

  Taking in a gulp of linen-strained air, I crumpled my handkerchief into my palm, widened my eyes into a gaze of innocence, and meandered toward the men. Behind me, I knew my father was scrutinizing both the cadets and their mounts.

  I chose a stretch of railing close to the men and curled my gloved fingers around it. In front of us, the cadets were being put through their paces, jumping hurdles at the far end of the hall and slashing at leather balls with their sabers at our end. My gasps at the intensity of their exercises were entirely real. Fortunately they served to attract attention. As I watched, a cadet in the middle of the hall reached out toward a brass ring with his saber as he jumped his horse over a hurdle.

  I held my breath.

  He caught the ring.

  I exhaled.

  Then he tumbled from the horse.

  “Oh!” I couldn’t keep myself from exclaiming.

  He picked himself up and stalked off, spurs marking his progress through the tanbark.

  Beside me, a man pulled a coin purse from his pocket, grumbling. He lifted his gaze toward me. “Beg pardon. No offense.”

  I smiled. “None taken.” I glanced beyond him to the other men. “This looks quite dangerous. Does the army know these cadets are doing things like this?”

  One of the men hid a smile in his sleeve and turned back to watch the cadets. But another man, one who was sketching in a book, glanced up at me. “They surely do, miss. And just as surely, I expect they don’t much care.”